Domestic Application of International Human Rights Law

Principal Investigator

YOKOTA Yozo The University of Tokyo, Graduate School of Law and Politics, Professor, 法学政治学研究科, 教授 (90052266)

Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha)

IWASAWA Yuji The University of Tokyo, Graduate School of Cultural Studies, Professor, 総合文化研究科, 教授 (20114390)
ONUMA Yasuaki The University of Tokyo, Graduate School of Law and Politics, Professor, 法学政治学研究科, 教授 (50009825)

In the traditional legal system of the international society, international law provided for the rights and duties of states while municipal laws stipulated the rights and duties of individuals, including human rights. However, this happy division of labor has been collapsing as a result of the development of international law after the Second World War, particularly through the development of various international organizations such as the United Nations and the recognition of the international status of non-state actors such as individuals and private enterprises. More concretely, in the field of human rights, starting with the adoption by the UN General Assembly of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, detailed provisions of human rights have appeared in international law instruments such as the International Human Rights Covenants, the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, and the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Consequently, the question of the
… More relationship between international law and municipal law in relation to human rights has become a theoretical as well as practical issue. This study tries to analyze this question from the viewpoint of the domestic application of international human rights law.In the Introduction, we examined the background and legal issues related to the domestic application of international human rights law. In Chapter One, we tackled the question of "the meaning of the resolutions, comments, etc., of the UN human rights organs and international human rights treaty bodies. We concluded that such resolutions and comments do not have the legal binding force in the strict sense of the term but the member states of the UN and parties to international human rights treaties have the political and moral responsibility to faithfully respect them. In Chapter Two, we pointed out that the international human rights provisions have hitherto been Euro-centric emphsizing too much on civil and political rights and individual rights ignoring the importance of economic, social cultural rights and collective rights which have more relevance to non-European civilizations and societies, and conluded that more balanced approach would be "inter-civilizational". In Chapter Three, we analyzed various court decisions in Japan to see how international human rights provisions and standards are actually applied and concluded that, in the past, Japanese courts have been reluctant to apply such international human rights provisions and standards but, in recent years, they have positively referring such provisions and standards in deciding upon cases involving human rights. Less